Embark
by DoryMoto
Summary: Set at the end of 3x24 'Knockout'. It's basically what you saw in the episode with a bunch more adjectives, commas and a tiny little twist at the end. Originally motivated by the song, I Will Follow You Into The Dark but you'll see some other Castle music find its way in. What's a little angst before season 5's couple-y goodness?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: it's been sort of a rule for me that I never write for the shows I watch. Just for made up people in my own head. I'm definitely terrified about posting this because I know I'll never do Kate Beckett or any of the Castle characters justice- but I had way too much coffee last night and between Tumblr & rewatching 3x24.. some terrible fangirl deep inside my brain said "Do it." and I listened. It's more of a set up for what's running through my head than a one-shot, but I think I might leave it as a standalone. I have never, ever finished a single story I've started.

tl;dr- I'm a reader, not a writer- but the fangirl from deep within is making me give it a go. Please let me know what you think? Besides the fact that I love commas too much. I'm already begging your forgiveness o.o

* * *

She'd glanced down at the podium for a mere moment, taken a steadying breath while stringing her next words together. It was just a moment. But suddenly, Castle was crying out her name. Kate could see him lunging across the grandstand as her eyes shift to the right. Just as rapidly, she feels a pinch in her chest that knocks her unsteady; feels her knees shudder beneath her. _What? _Kate's brow knits in confusion at first, brain frozen by shock.

It happens in a span of seconds. She's flying backward, people are screaming. Castle's tackling her, and somewhere amidst the nanoseconds as they tumult with physics her brain comes back to life- realizes it'd heard the hissing pop of a rifle.

She's been shot.

She's been _shot_.

_She's been shot_.

Whether it's because she's actually recognized it happened or it's just how slow her nervous system is reacting, pain begins radiating through her. Blooms from near dead center on her chest like she's the first day of spring. Every nerve ending screams, heaves with death. She can't breathe; the oxygen comes into her lungs already on fire and cremates her from the inside out. She can't breathe, and she can barely move. Can't even register it's the blue sky she's looking at until Castle blocks it from view.

Castle. His eyes snap down and then back to her face.

His face would break the news to her if her body hadn't already. This is bad. He looks stricken, petrified. Kate vaguely hears Esposito in the background, shouting. (_"Beckett'sdown, Beckett'sDOWN!"_)

"_Kate_," he whispers, still nearly disbelieving. Castle doesn't seem to know where to put his hands; he wants to stop the bleeding, he wants to help her breathe, he wants to cradle Kate's struggling body to him and save her life. One hand slips behind her head, the other clutches at her side.

His face swims above her, distorted by tears. She's crying. She can't help it. Her mouth is open, but she can't push the words through her larynx. She's desperate, fighting_. Is this really happening_? One barely audible noise rallies from her. It's probably the closest she's ever come to whimpering- Kate Beckett does not whimper.

"Shhh," Castle soothes. It'd be more reassuring if he weren't crying, if his hands weren't shaking with panic. If she weren't seized by the tremors of death. He must know what she's thinking, because his next words are pleading. "Kate. Stay with me, Kate. Don't leave me, please. Stay with me, okay?"

Kate tries to rein in the fear that's rampant in her eyes- horror at the fact that this is really how her life is ending. Terrified with all the things she hasn't done, all the words she never said. She tries to nod at his words as a tear rolls away from her. Like she has a choice. She knows she doesn't- but he's so earnestly beseeching, begs with such sincerity that maybe she does. And even if she doesn't, Kate can at least give him this comfort in return. She wants to stay. Her eyes are locked with his- they can't look away from each other. Castle doesn't want to miss a moment, a breath, a blink. Kate is wild to convey what she cannot say.

She almost feels out of her own body, isn't sure if she's feeling any part of it. A floating feeling? Yeah, that seems right. It's some kind of weightless, nearly tingling experience. The pressure in Kate's lungs is the only thing weighing her down- if she could just relax and exhale, it would all drift away. _No_, her brain snarls. _Castle_.

She battles to stay with him, to keep him in focus. She's slipping away and they both know it. Castle realizes it when her gaze lowers and falls to the side, like she's looking at the sky beyond him. Like she's being called away. God, he can't breathe. He has to keep her here, in the moment. Doesn't want her to leave him without knowing.

"Kate," he begs, all agony. Her eyes travel miles back to his. "I love you. I love you, Kate." For a moment, he lets himself believe he's healed her_. I love you_. It echoes within her, she feels those words spreading comfort across what little awareness she maintains. _I love you, Kate_. The corner of her mouth almost turns up. Through the tortured look on her beautiful face, beneath the fright and shock in her expressive eyes, he almost sees pleasure. Almost.

It's a ghost of his imagination as Castle watches her eyes roll back, feels her body go loose under him. Feels the heavy weight of her head rolling back when the little control she was exerting disappears.

He can't feel anything after that. Doesn't feel Lanie pushing him away to start chest compressions; doesn't feel guilt for stranding his mother, Alexis and their driver when he roars away with the car; doesn't feel the bruising pain of his seat belt as he whips the car through Manhattan traffic; can't feel the utter desolation welling at the reality of having lost her when he finds out she flat lineed before making it through hospital doors.

* * *

It was dark. Kate couldn't see a thing, couldn't feel a thing when she reached out around her. She fumbled through the darkness, searching. Searching for what? Kate isn't even sure how she came to be here. Wherever. God, she was having intense chest pains. Was she having a heart attack? Impossible. She's too young and too healthy for that. Where the hell is she? Did somebody take her hostage? Drug her? Better keep moving, look for something- anything- to tell her what's going on.

She's not sure how long she moves through the dark, but eventually Kate's outstretched hand meets a wall. She feels along the wall- brick and mortar- for a few paces, stops. Her chest feels like it's on fire, her head is pounding.

An eerie feeling creeps into her, unsettling her further as she tries to remember what happened. Where was Castle? Hadn't they just been together..?

_"I love you. I love you, Kate."_ The words he'd spoken felt like a sunburst through an all-encompassing storm. The shadow that encroached on her vision, that had wrapped her in seeming oblivion, exploded. Daylight embraced her all at once.

No, not daylight. There is no sun. It isn't light, so much as it's just no longer black.

Kate glances all around, curious. Suspicious. Confused. Another person catches her eye- not far, not close. Neither threatening, nor inviting. But she recognizes the figure. Her heart stops. Or would have, if a bullet hadn't blown a hole through it and done the job. Oh, right.

"Mom?"

At her mother's answering smile, the ache which lingered for twelve years under the apex of Kate's previously beating heart vanishes.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thank you for the awesome reviews! They kind of lit up my life, ha! I appreciate the encouragement. I'll try continuing this story- I can't promise fast updates or an ending, but I'll do my best. Please let me know what you think!

_"Mom?"_

_At her mother's answering smile, the ache which had lingered for twelve years under the apex of Kate's previously beating heart vanishes._

"Katie," Johanna's full of contradicting emotions. Happiness presses itself onto her face, nearly superimposing the grief and regret. The two women move together, mother embracing daughter in timeless tradition.

Kate doesn't know what kind of reality this is and for the moment she really could not care less. Not when she's falling into the solid comfort of her mother's arms, shaking with some silencing mixture of desperation and reprieve. It's disconcerting at first- she doesn't remember being taller than her mother- but Kate clutches tightly at her mother's back. Listens to the soft, faltering hushing noises Johanna makes.

"Oh, Katie. How did you end up here? "It's something of a question if Kate fully recognizes the situation she's in. Her head shakes against Johanna's shoulder, mouth refusing to move. Johanna tries to pull away, get down to business. "Katie, will you-"

"I don't know, mom. I don't- I can't. Please. Can we just- can you just. . ." Kate doesn't know what she's trying to ask for. She wants answers, she wants a moment to soak in the comfort of having a mother again, she wants never to think about anything ever again. She wants this conversation with her mom to be well and truly happening. Kate drops her head, a curtain of honey colored hair hiding her face. "Are you actually here? Real?" It takes every iota of strength not to choke on those words. "Am I dreaming this?"

Johanna feels like a whale is trying to breach through the crevices between her ribs. "Of course I'm actually here," she finally answers. "But I'm not real. And you're not dreaming." Kate furrows her brows, and Johanna feels it tug at her with familiarity. "You don't change, Katie. Still the same frown when you're trying to work something out. Put an obstacle in front of you and you'll run straight at it. I was that way, too."

_'I give you a name, I know you, you'll run straight at him. I might as well shoot you where you stand.'_ Montgomery's words are almost mocking this time around. He would have saved everyone a lot of trouble- he'd probably still be alive.

Kate's silent for a minute, contemplative. "I don't understand," she tells her mother. "You're dead." Johanna confirms this, nodding decisively. "This is some kind of limbo- right? I mean, there were no bright lights- no pearly white gates. You said I'm not dreaming. So you're here to.. What? Help me cross over?"

Johanna offers her daughter a half smile, tainted with regret. "It's not that simple."

"Well, make it simple. Explain this to me. What the hell is going on? Am I dead or not?" She does this prolonged blink with the last two words- like she's so agitated she can't talk unless her whole body takes part in pushing the words past her lips. One hand arcs outward in question, offering a parabolic platter for her mother's answer.

"_Katherine_ Beckett, I may be dead but you will show me more respect," Johanna gently chastises. Frustrated, Kate runs a hand through her hair and half turns away from her mom. Forces a heavy rush of air out and turns back. Since her mother died and her father felt he lost the privilege, few people undertook the daunting task of reprimanding her behaviour. Yet, as alien as it was Kate welcomed her mother's rebuke.

Kate pulls her lower lip under her front teeth and looks at her mother from under apologetic lashes. "I'm sorry. Could you please just.. Help me figure this out? I don't understand what's happening right now."

Johanna tucks her palm at Kate's unruly waves, pushing it out of her eyes. "My little girl," she murmurs. "My sweet girl. How did you get here?"

_Where is here?_ Kate barely keeps herself from crying out again. Where are her answers? Instead of starting another song and dance with her mother, Kate struggles to recall the sequence of events which led her … here. Her mother's case, so long covered by the dust of undiscovered leads, had come to light. Chasing the case down the rabbit hole. Her fight with Castle. The hangar blips through her mind; desperate for Montgomery's truth, struggling against Castle's grip, finding the only solid link to truth marinating in the deep red of his own blood. Meeting with the boys in her apartment, making sure their family secret stays within their circle. The funeral. Castle. _Castle_.

"I was shot. Speaking at my captain's funeral," Kate responds simply. "He'd died trying to protect me."

"Oh, Katie. That's not what I mean. I know what happened- I've seen it all. I saw you save your father, I saw you join the academy. I watched you become detective and I've seen you every day since. I've seen you slay dragons like Koonan. The biggest downside to being dead- you can see the ones you love, but you can never get inside their heads. What I don't understand- what I've never been able to figure out- is how you let yourself get so lost? How did my murder become your entire life?"

Kate's looking at her in utter disbelief, vocal chords struck temporarily mute as she gapes. "What do you mean, how could I? You're _my mother_. Somebody murdered you in an alley, stabbed you nine times and left you to die. _Alone_. And the person who did that to you has never had to answer for it. You, mom- you were my moral compass growing up. You taught me right from wrong, _you_ taught me that truth conquers all. You showed me justice is the most important thing; no act of evil exists for which there are no consequences. The truth can't stay hidden. That's what you always told me. And knowing that _nobody_ else cared to find your truth? It killed me. Every single day. How could I? How could I _not_? I wanted to give you what you deserved. You gave a voice to the innocent, the victims, and made the guilty atone. The world owes you the same. I owe you that." Kate's impassioned speech tapers at the last sentences, softens as guilt sucks at her insides.

Both women are crushed beneath a weighty guilt. The burden of the world Atlas carries has nothing on the presumed culpability shouldered by mother and daughter.

Johanna strangles a sob before it escapes, equally incredulous. "Kate, maybe you're right- maybe the world does owe me something. _You've_ never owed me a thing. If anything, you owe me your life- not to throw away running after something you may never have caught- but to _live_ it."

"I couldn't disappoint you," Kate whispers, looking down again. "I couldn't let you down by giving up." She can hardly look at her mother for having failed. "I'm sorry I wasn't enough." Kate is suddenly pulled into a hug, ferocious and consuming.

"Katie, you have _always_ been enough. Listen," Johanna demands when Kate pulls away again, shaking her head. "Kate, I never wanted anything but for you to live. I know you don't understand- you don't have a child of your own. Richard Castle knows, he could have told you." Kate's head snaps up, surprised to hear his name. "He knows how I felt without ever having to know me. Any parent, no matter what the circumstance, wants their child to live a long, fulfilling life. Happy, with people who love them."

Kate can't hold the emotions in check any longer, doesn't know how to make her mother see that happiness was never an option.

Johanna can tell her daughter is stubbornly resisting the message she's trying to convey. "I never, not even for one second, wanted justice for myself more than I wanted you to let this all go and find your life. I would have had all the justice I needed, then." Tears run hot down Kate's face, eyes aching from the salty sting.

"No, you don't understand," Kate repines. "Everything was different after you died. Dad wasn't there, you weren't there; our family didn't exist anymore, _I_ didn't exist anymore. I don't know what was harder- losing you or the twelve years that came after. I was somebody else all of a sudden and the only thing that made sense was what you taught me- to find the truth, to seek justice. If I could get closure for you, for dad.. Maybe I could put it all to rest. Don't you see? Until that happens, I don't believe in happy or moving on." She's sputtering as her reasoning winds down, loses her ability to put together words that could explain half of what she was feeling.

Her mother pulls her close. "Kate, you ridiculous girl. If I could choose between your life and my retribution, I'd pick you in a heartbeat a hundred million times over. It's my fault, not yours, that this happened. My fault, your mistake." Something warm and damp is spreading across Kate's chest as they embrace. Johanna steps back as Kate glances down. Blood pops and sizzles out from the hole in her sternum, burning in a way it should never know how.

Kate's horrified, grasping at her shirt to provide some relief to her scalded skin. "Mom-?"


End file.
